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Harrison Barnes is a great high school basketball talent. He's also a smart kid, genius maybe. Maybe he'll be the next great college player. Maybe he'll be the next Kobe or Lebron.

One thing he certainly is already is master showman. Witness the spectacle that was his college selection process Friday. The Ames, Iowa, prep phenom chose North Carolina as his new home for a year until he flees to the land of million-dollar contracts.

The foot-7 swingman, widely regarded as the top player in the Class of 2010, stretched out the announcement, touting a draft boardesque selection of school logos and ticking off the merits of each school - until he dialed up Roy Williams and crew at Chapel Hill - via a Skype video call, no less - to tell them he was the next great seeker of the Michael Jordan throne. Let's just hope coach Williams doesn't make the same mistake Dean Smith did with Jordan and leave him off the Sports Illustrated cover photo.

Barnes was also considering Duke, Kansas, Oklahoma, UCLA and Iowa State, his hometown school. He made his announcement Friday before hundreds of students in the gym at Ames High School and via a live video feed watched by thousands.

Barnes led Ames to a 26-0 record and a state title last winter, but he's made a name for himself nationally with impressive performances on the summer circuit.

As crazy coaching moments go, Gunnar Prokop tries to give his best Woody Hayes effort and ends up slightly less infamous, but no better than the disgraced THE Ohio State University coach.

When Hayes punched Clemson defender Charlie Bauman in the 1978 Gator Bowl after a game-sealing interception, he put himself on a one-way express train to loserville, being fired the next day never to coach again.

For his part, Prokop, coach of Austrian handball team Hypo Niederoesterreich, one-upped Hayes in that he hip-checked an opposing player in the women's Champions League game. But he doesn't rise to the level of incredulity since nobody outside the rabid Austrian women's handball fan base noticed.

Still, it's another coach gone after a crazy moment, though Prokop fell on his own sword without being pushed to make amends. Thankfully, he's already in the city Sigmund Freud made famous for psychoanalysis, so he'll be able to spend his newly acquired free time figuring out why he just had to hit a girl.

"I will go through this with a psychiatrist. ... I still can't understand why I've done this."

The match ended in a 27-27 draw. Handball's European governing body opened disciplinary proceedings against Prokop. A ruling is expected before his team's match against Krim Ljubljana on Sunday.

We will, of course, be waiting to see justice done here.

It's gotta be the (right brand of) shoes.

Marcus Jordan, son of basketball legend Michael Jordan, will be wearing Nike shoes when he suits up as a freshman for the University of Central Florida basketball team this season. His teammates, meanwhile, will be donning Adidas.

Michael Jordan's name has become synonymous with the brand of shoe he hawked throughout his NBA career.

"It's a level of importance with the Jordan Brand and my family," Marcus Jordan said Thursday at a team media event. "It's no disrespect to Adidas. I have a high level of respect for adidas, but I'm going to be wearing Jordan shoes. I'm wearing the Adidas uniform and all my other UCF gear is Adidas, but the shoes are going to be Jordan Brand."

Fanhouse is reporting that Adidas was not happy about the decision, but "didn't press the issue because they feared a backlash."

Marcus Jordan, a 6-3 guard who graduated from basketball powerhouse Whitney Young last year, is the second oldest of Michael Jordan's three children.

During his Hall of Fame induction speech, Michael Jordan said his children carry a "heavy burden" and that he'd never want to switch places with them. 

When the country's economy takes a brutal smack to the face, academia suffers, too. The solution? If you're a 2,601-enrollment school in Greenville, South Carolina, you travel to the Midwest to play a football game.

The Furman Paladin football team will be in Columbia, Missouri this weekend to take on the Mizzou Tigers, a game that guarantees the school $450,000 -- win or lose. The school pulled out of a scheduled game against fellow FCS school Deleware in order to make the game work after SMU backed out of a game in Columbia.

According to an article in today's Columbia Missourian, "Because Missouri generates so much more revenue from a home game, it can afford to pay Furman more money than Furman would receive from a home game of its own."

"Gifts to the university are down just as they are across the country," Gary Clark, Furman's director of athletics told the Missourian. "Bills are up. Expenses are up, revenues are down, in general, yes."

Notre Dame want to keep the gold in its helmets and and out of the pocket of at least one waitress, it seems. The University is going after a waitress who reeled in a massive $29,000 tip, saying it's a clerical mistake and she needs to pay the money back.

In the land of Touchdown Jesus, scooping up plates and taking orders at banquets only gets you $29 in gratuities, apparently:

The school says in a lawsuit that it paid Sara Gaspar the huge gratuity instead of about $29 because of a clerical error. The suit, filed in St. Joseph Circuit Court in South Bend, says Gaspar kept the money without telling the school.

Gaspar says she called the school three times about the unusual payment but spent the money on a car and to pay bills after the school didn't get back to her.

Gratuities are paid to workers by the school as part of the workers' checks.

No word on whether this will affect their BCS rankings.

Because we all are wondering what magic could come of a Kansas State-Connecticut football match, Yankee Stadium officials are in talks with the Big East and Big 12 conferences to host a bowl game there.

The Yankee Bowl would pit the seventh-place team from the Big 12 against the third- or fourth-place team from the Big East, according to the New York Times.

Officials from both conferences say they intend to make the deal happen.

There's no word yet on when the bowl game would be played, but there's definitely been a huge push to have football in the new stadium -- just as it was in the old one. Notre Dame is inked to play there next season, and Army has three games lined up there.

But another bowl game? As cool as it would be to schlep to NYC to watch a 6-win Mizzou team take on a sub-par Louisville, I just don't see it.

So my prediction for this year's Indiana Hoosier football team?  They'll finish 1-11, just barely missing a bowl selection.  But, hey, don't lose hope just yet, Hoosier fans.  I've been wrong before.  Besides, right now they're tied for first in the Big Ten with nine other teams.  Neat!

ESPN commentator Dick Vitale has stepped in to put a positive twist on an otherwise tragic story.

Vitale, one of the most recognizable voices in college basketball, has pledged to help defray funeral costs for a Bradenton, Fla. student who was fatally shot Friday night.

Bay Shore High School cheerleader Jazmine Thompson was gunned down after the school's football game. Her mother recently lost her job and doesn't have insurance.

"I didn't know Jazmine. I just know what I read, and it tears my heart out," Vitale told Tampa Bay Online. "There's no way there should be a funeral for that young girl this weekend. She did nothing wrong. She was minding her own business."

Vitale also plans to talk to the school about establishing a scholarship.

When "Big Ten Friday Night Tailgate" kicks off tonight on the Big Ten Network, it'll mark the show's third season of hyping us up for Saturday football.

Host Mike Hall (full disclosure: friend of the blog) and correspondents Charissa Thompson, Jordan Klepper, Steve Waltien and Tim Baltz are once again primed to introduce us to the players, students, fans and faculty that populate Big Ten college towns throughout the Midwest.

Blending sports and humor isn't always the easiest thing, but the FNT crew has managed to find a way to do it consistently each fall. Perhaps it's because each of them (including Hall) are improvisers in Chicago's famed improv comedy scene.

In honor of FNT's premiere (Fridays, Big Ten Network, 8:30 p.m. ET), we caught up with Mike this afternoon to talk about the improv effect, changes to this year's show and generally distract him while he was busy at work putting the final touches on tonight's show:

LeGarrette Blount had plenty to say with his mouth heading into Thursday night's Pac-10, WAC top-20 tilt between the 16th-ranked Ducks and No. 14 Boise St. Broncos.

By the end of the game, a 19-8 win for Boise State, Blount was talking with his fists and being dragged off the field by coaches and cops. And for his troubles, University of Oregon suspended the talented back for the remainder of the season, including any bowl game the Ducks might play in.

Blount will, however get to keep his scholarship.

University president Richard Lariviere called Blount's behavior "reprehensible."

"We do not and will not tolerate the actions that were taken by our player. Oregon's loyal fans expect and deserve better," Lariviere said in a statement. "The University of Oregon Athletics Department is reviewing the situation and will take appropriate action, reflecting the seriousness of the player's behavior."

Blount, who's own coaches say he has a lot of maturing to do and was suspended once in pre-season practice already, put the key quote on the bulletin board before Thursday night's rematch of the teams, saying Oregon owed Boise State an "ass-whoopin' " after the Ducks 37-32 upset loss last season at Oregon. Unfortunately for Blount, he forgot to open up his can during the game in the 19-8 loss. The closest he came to the end zone was in scoring four total points - two for Boise State in a safety and two for Oregon in a 2-point conversion. This in a game which saw the high-powered Duck offense manage zero first-half first downs and only 5:50 minutes of possession.

But it was after the game that Blount finally decided to start the whoopin'.

Following what appeared to be a quick taunt, Blount nailed sophomore defensive end Byron Hout with a cheap-shot right hand, caught by ESPN cameras. Apparently not satisfied with the impending suspension that will draw, he then started to go nuts on Boise State fans on the way off the field, forcing Oregon coaches and police to forcibly remove him.